29 November, 2017

We hear people saying this to us more often nowadays ‘Parenting should not be tough for you guys anymore. The kids are
all grown up so you guys can breathe easy. It’s not difficult anymore’.

Hmmm… those statements can't be further away from the truth. I'm not talking just about us. I guess I speak for every single parent out there.

Parenting IS tough, no matter how grown up your kids may
be.

Hell, I still drive my mom nuts !

When couples or single parents decide to step
into parenting, it is pretty much like taking a leap of faith, many times
over, off a plane in the sky, with a parachute strapped on. There are
times when the said parachute opens and there will be times when the said
parachute refuses to open, claiming defects of some sort of the other.
Either ways, once a parent, the onus to land on terra firma becomes a necessity
because it is not just the parent that the parent needs to look out for, it is
the child / children as well.

When Macadamia and Pecan were newborns, small
babies, toddlers, little children, there have been so many such instances that
we’ve been through. Some days all was well, some days all was not
well. There were days when we felt we were doing fine at the parenting
gig, there were days when we felt we were absolute supremos at this parenting gig and then there was many a time when we felt all we did was wrong, that we were
falling short as parents all the time, that we were the biggest living blunders on this planet.

Once one embarks on this journey called
parenting, at every given stage of your child’s life, the doubts that make
their way into your mind are constant. The questions are unrelenting,
they are insistent and they are remorseless. Irrespective of whether
you’ve had a good night’s sleep or whether you haven’t been able to sleep a
wink for days together, the questions and doubts continue their onslaught on a
parent’s mind.

‘Should I have got my child into a playgroup to
learn social skills ?’ to ‘Should my child have been potty trained by now ?’ to
‘Am I communicating enough with my teen ?’ to ‘Should my kids be pushing
themselves as much as they are, right now ?’ to 'Am I being too easy on them ?' to ‘Are they getting enough sleep
?’, the questions simply continue to flow. They never stop.
Children move from one phase of growth to another but the questions continue to
surface and evolve.

When Macadamia and Pecan were little, I remember
not having slept for nights together because both of them were horrible when it
came to sleeping. There have been times when Pecan used to wake up the
minute I got to bed. There have been numerous times when Macadamia has
woken up multiple times in the night and screamed or cried – just like
that. Even at times like those, body totally exhausted, mind slipping out
of control, one part of your mind wanting to throw in the towel, parents still
tend to look at their kids and say ‘Yes love. What’s the matter ?’

There have been times when both of them used to
be sick at the same time and I remember couple of such instances in particular
when I got puked on so many times during the night that we actually ran out of
sheets and pillow covers. I clearly remember being at the very end of my
tether. In the wee hours of the morning, both sick babies fell asleep and I vividly remember looking around at the house - which looked like a disaster zone - things strewn here, there, everywhere, piles of laundry to be done and there I was, in my crumpled pajamas, hair disheveled and wild eyed - but I remember I could not bring myself to move. Yet, life went on. We managed, as have numerous other parents the world over.

Yes, extreme exhaustion is a thing. It exists. At some point of time or the other on the parenting road, every single person does reach that point of no return in terms of being exhausted but we grit our teeth, pull up our socks and carry on. Because we simply have to.

Earlier in the year, I was rather acutely aware
of the fact that there was every possibility that Macadamia would take off to
some university in some other part of the world. Darn !! That
brought to the fore those two words again – ‘letting go’ – the two words that
are eternally scripted onto the book called ‘Things parents need to
learn’. Not easy. Far from it. But parents the world over do it - they learn to let go - not because they want to - but simply because they have to.

I stepped into parenthood 18 years ago.
Don’t you go about having any illusions of it having been as easy as stepping
into a pair of well worn shoes. It was more like wiggling my feet into
shoes that were a couple of sizes small. Heck ! I didn’t even know
how to hold a newborn properly when Macadamia was born. I was clumsy, it
felt awkward and there were always those questions that I talked about earlier
– unrelenting and incessant – making me feel all the more inadequate. Eighteen years back is a long time but those memories are so vivid. Macadamia was a colicky baby and there have been plenty of times when I felt hopelessly out of place, incompetent as a mom.

But I learnt, as does every new parent.
That’s pretty much what it is – parenting teaches you something new every
single step of the way. Right from realizing that you hurt more when your
child hurts to understanding that letting go is never as easy or practical as
it is made to sound.

Through all these years, parenthood has taught
me many hard truths. Every single one of those learning experiences has
left its mark in its own inimitable way. Parenting has its own way of
turning feelings of helplessness into those of toughness and resilience, of
turning weaknesses into cores of strengths.

This one goes out to all the new parents out
there and all the parents to be. Parenting IS tough. Through it
all, you will probably realize just as I have (somewhere along the way) that
parenting is not about making things perfect. It is about realizing,
accepting how much fun and how complete life is, with all those little imperfect
bits. It is about consciously appreciating the imperfections that make
each individual what he or she is, valuing and welcoming the wholesomeness that
the said imperfection brings with it.

Parenting is not about life being any easier
because the kids have grown up. It is about those complications that have
a permanent place in one’s life, about how those complexities turn into little
pieces of truth and wisdom and how those, in turn, embed themselves into your
family, your psyche and serve to make your whole family one wholesome unit
fused by togetherness.

Trust me, there will be times when you will feel
like throwing in the towel, but you won’t. You may cry, you may scream
out of sheer exhaustion and frustration, you may weep out of fear and that
feeling of incompetence, you may throw things, you may break things but – you
will still trudge on, you will continue to carry on, you will grit your teeth
and scale that mountain called parenting, you will continue caring for and
nurturing the lives you were instrumental in bringing into this world.

Parenting, sometimes,
is not just difficult, it is impossible. Yet, you will carry on. That
mantra then embeds itself in your heart and mind -

'Impossible - Yes, it does feel that way sometimes.Difficult - It has always been. It still is. It always will be. Carry on and give it my best - Yes, I
will. We will.’

01 November, 2017

“No !” rang the journalist’s voice, laced with desperation, dripping with anguish. “I did not kill her. His lawyer looked at him and smiled - a confident smile that said “Don't worry - we'll win”

She’d been a very famous model. They’d been seeing each other regularly. Two months back, she had been found dead in her apartment. His fingerprints were all over and he was charged with her murder.

The murderer had been visiting the courtroom regularly. He had been smitten by her and had courted her. Things had started warming between them and suddenly, out of the blue, came this journalist. What started off as a professional interview turned personal. He discovered that they were having an affair

“In the light of the evidence presented, I request that my client be acquitted” boomed the defense counsel’s voice.

“After taking into consideration all the evidence presented before the court, this court finds the defendant guilty of murder” intoned the judge.

“She spurned me and got what she deserved. He stole her from me and got what he deserved. Two birds with one stone” thought the murderer, as he gathered his black robes around him and rose from the judge’s chair.

12 July, 2017

The IB results were declared last week. The Secondary School places allotments came
through yesterday. The HKDSE results are
expected today. Results always bring to
the fore the ever-present fascination with numbers – the attribution of a
number that classifies an individual as a success or a failure.

Do these numbers serve a purpose other than to make
kids more conscious of setting a certain bar for themselves, if they fall below
which, they deem themselves to be failures ?
Why ?

As parents, giving credence to numbers and
achievements can be attributed to the fact that these are undeniably associated
with their futures and careers. But, the
current education systems in most parts of the world have made parents re-align
their attitudes towards priorities in raising kids. Elements like self-identities and self-worth
are increasingly being determined based on achievements and external
recognition.

Somewhere along the way, helicopter parenting has
become a common thing where everything is timetabled, set by parents who also
consider it necessary to shield kids from disappointment and pain of failure.

The Secondary School place allotments were declared yesterday. One could see parents running helter-skelter,
in sheer desperation, to other schools, if their child had not managed to get
into a school of choice while the students in question themselves, meandered
rather aimlessly, looking lost and doomed.
This brings me to my next point.

What kind of future generation are we raising ?

It is only too frightfully common to see
parents intervening in situations to the extent that the youth of today doesn’t
have to, doesn’t know how to face problems head on and try solving them themselves. If homework is forgotten, one of the parents
or the help at home rushes to school with the said book. On one of the forums that Macadamia uses, for
researching on universities, she found quite a number of parents posing
questions on behalf of their 18 year-old children, claiming that their children
are not old enough / mature enough to pose questions by themselves. Are we not setting the youth up for failure
by over extending support to this extent ?
Are we not erasing those lines of accountability that are associated
with / drawn by a youngster’s own actions, thus teaching them a life lesson in
responsibility ?

Parents nowadays don’t want their kids to come face
to face with failure of any kind. The
other day, during the Parent Teacher meeting, I came across a few parents who
did not want their kids to know how they had done at school because the kids
would be disappointed. While part of me
understood the kids being disappointed, part of me was quite bewildered at this
parental logic. It left me wondering if
it is that bad a thing for kids to experience disappointment. Is it ?

Pecan has experienced not being able to attain what
he set out to achieve, on more than one occasion. Last year, he was pipped to the post in the
finals of a competition, giving the phrase ‘so near yet so far’ a new
meaning. Recently, he narrowly lost out
on being the Head Prefect at school.

Macadamia was stonewalled and lost out on an UK
university because of being underage.
Now, despite the gruelling hours she put in, she is in a situation where her
first choice of university hangs in balance because she fell short by 1 point
in her IB results. She does have her
backup plan but is still having to battle it out for her first choice.

Disappointments, letdowns, discouragements – all
these are part of life. I personally
think it is very important for children to learn that disappointment is an
emotion that is normal, is experienced, and what is most important is not to
dwell on it, but to learn from it and move on.
Kids need to learn that falling is a normal part of the life process but
the more important thing is being able to get up, dust themselves off, and face
the future, head on, again.

Kids can and should be protected only so much, for,
there will come a day when each one of them will have to meet the future head
on. After having protected them from
failures all along, after having shielded them from hurt and disappointment all
along, what will it be like for them, if they are suddenly expected to learn
about facing disappointments after they are 18 ?

As parents, I think we would stand our kids in good
stead if we focus on cultivating in them, qualities of hard work, perseverance,
resilience, endurance, flexibility, toughness, strength, empathy, adaptability,
responsiveness, and being responsible global citizens of tomorrow. Society needs to start focusing on character
and as parents, it is time we started teaching the next generation the true
meaning of responsibility and accountability, respecting their interests and
leanings, rather than use kids as mouthpieces or receptacles for our own
unfulfilled dreams and ambitions.

While we are at it, we need to let them experience the falls that are a natural
process of growing up, for to learn to get up, dust themselves and get ready to
face the future is way more important a life lesson than conveniently handing
it to them on a platter.

27 June, 2017

We
left this series hanging at the naming ceremony (the Namakaranam) of the
baby. There are little ceremonies that are conducted at the drop of a hat in TamBrahm households but
in trying to highlight the major ones (meaning functions where half the city is
invited to attend), the next one has to be the Annaprashanam.

The
little people, aka babies do lead a rather boring life in terms of food, during
the first few months of their lives. No
wonder then, that they cry or make their displeasure known, quite often. We adults, however, take those tears and
howls as a sign of hunger and feed them some more tasteless liquids or better
still, tasteless mush.

Now these babies are
very smart little people. Ever seen how
fascinated babies are when they watch people eat ? Well, we don’t stop to think of what’s going
on inside their little heads, do we ?
Plenty, is what I’d think. When
it’s their turn, it’s back to eating mush without much taste to it and we
adults are indeed pushing our luck in expecting them to adore the stuff they’re
fed during their first few months of life.

Trust
me babies, you have no idea what you’ve missed out on !!!

There
comes a point when babies start turning their heads away, pursing their lips
tightly closed at the sight of that infamous “lunch or dinner” or better still,
lull their caregivers into a sense of complacency by taking in a whole spoonful
of the mush and seconds later, spitting it all out with the force of a stone
leaving a catapult. That’s when the penny drops in the human head
– ah ha ! The baby wants solid food.

The
baby is tired of eating (well, if you can call rolling the mush around inside
the mouth and swallowing the goop that) mush !!
Bunch of Einsteins, I tell ya !

The
necessary calls to the priest are made.
Why priest aaaa ? If you haven’t
figured that one out by now, I’d probably categorize you in the ‘beyond hope’
box. See, no TamBrahm function ever
happens without an officiating priest.
Yeah … they are considered THAT important.

The
‘event’ quite a bit of planning – duh !
Which TamBrahm function doesn’t require planning huh ?! It needs some core people to be present – the
most important being the baby, of course.
What did you think I was going to say ?
The priest ?? Nah !! The baby beats them to it here.

A
feast is in the offing but the star of the day is not offered all the items on
the feast spread. Their tummies haven’t
as yet turned into the foodie tummies that TamBrahms are blessed with. This is just the start towards turning that
little individual into a gourmand gastronome (really don’t know why some people
think that glutton is a synonym for every TamBrahm out there. I really don’t.)

The
usual pomp and pageantry is on display by the family priest and his horde of
assistants – who would be busy setting things up, spilling things, smearing
things on the floor, wiping stuff on their veshtis (dhotis) so much so that the
so called white veshti would soon be looking like a multi coloured mural of
modern art. They will, of course, be
asking for things that were not on the original list and generally making sure
that a whole plethora of chaos ensues in the said household. That’s what they are paid for, truth be told
and this is something I’ve always believed.

Once
the food items are set out on a plate or a banana leaf (for TamBrahms it is
usually a banana leaf – what I mean is the food items are served on a banana
leaf – just in case some of you are under the impression that we TamBrahms make
our babies eat a banana leaf.) The
father would be dutifully sitting with baby on his lap while the mother would
be standing a couple of steps behind the father (the TamBrahm community is
pretty steeped in patriarchy, so…).
Baby, in the meanwhile, would be at a stage where anything and
everything gets eaten – except, yep – you guessed that right - food.

The
father is then asked to feed the baby a little something from the banana
leaf. At this point in time, past
experience has taught me that it is better to be specific and tell the father
to start by feeding the baby something taste specific like sweet or sour or
salty – you get the picture, right ? .
Else, baby could possibly end up tasting a mix of sambar, rasam, yoghurt,pickle
, payasam, banana – well just about everything on the banana leaf – all at one
go. I kid you not – that’s how some
people eat. Baby could end up with a
very confused palate, methinks. But then
again, it would convince the little people that this confusion in the palate is why most
adults wear a perpetually confused look and talk gibberish when talking to
these little humans !!

There
will be times when one would come across babies that don’t really like sweet
stuff. But nah ! We TamBrahms are made of sterner stuff. The baby gets fed, baby spits, baby gets fed
the same thing again, baby spits again, baby gets fed a bigger spoonful by some
Einstein who, by this time, strongly believes that baby is spitting out stuff because
there wasn’t enough on the spoon !

Ahem …. Ever considered the remote possibility
that your baby doesn’t like sweets ??!!
Feed the baby Doritos or Lays or some such thing for a change and you’ll
know for sure. But then again, some
things just don’t happen, do they ? This
whole feeding / spitting out process continues till the new parents are
convinced (by now) that their baby, for some weird reason, hates solid food and
the baby in question has pretty much begun to think that the whole thing is one
big game. Big
people feed, I spit – that’s the name of the game.What fun, I say !

Baby
might pick up an ant scurrying about nearby and pop it into its mouth and
relish it like a tasty snack but those few first mouthfuls of ghee and rice
would invariably be used as confetti to pepper baby’s own face or if baby is
industrious enough, to find its mark on the faces of people around the
baby. Either way, for the spectators, it
is time to grab that bag of popcorn.
Highly possible things could get funny.

You
see, toddlers have a very simple rule.
Food, no matter what the cuisine, always tastes better when picked off
the floor and eaten. Did you just say
‘eeewww’ ? Where else the hell do you
think they get their immunity from ? Ten
years down the line, when you’re enjoying that lip smacking bhel at a roadside
joint, do remember to say thanks to Mother Nature for making it a part and
parcel of every single toddler, to pick stuff off the floor and send it on its
way into their tummies !

Also,
it’s so not fair to deprive the little ones of interesting things like say a
pizza or some crisps and what have you.
After all, the purpose of this ceremony is to let them know that there’s
a whole nice world of food waiting for them beyond the mush they have been fed
until now. How can parents keep all the
good things away from them ? Wish this
had struck us before our kids’ annaprashnam.
Ahem …. Things would have been slightly different then.

For
the TamBrahms, everything starts with food and ends with food. So does the Chorunnu. There’s nothing more to it, really. The baby is just given a glimpse of what
he/she is missing on a day to day basis (in terms of lip smacking food, as they
down their mush) and off goes baby, into the arms of the doting grandparents or
aunts or uncles or neighbours or whatever.
As always, the real feast is enjoyed by the adults and of course, the
vadhyars.

In
some other states in India, this Annaprashnam ceremony is usually followed by
laying multiple items in front of baby.
A book symbolising learning, Jewellery symbolising wealth, A pen
symbolising wisdom, some clay symbolising property (I believe). Whoever thought of that last bit, of
putting a lump of clay in front of a toddler (and expecting them not to eat it)
has to be an absolute genius. Without
question, that one !

The
baby is then allowed to crawl over and choose one of the items as the adults
around him/her wait with bated breath to see which one the baby picks. I’d personally say it depends on what’s going
through the little genius’s mind right then.
Baby logic would ideally dictate – I’m going to pick up whatever can fit
in my nostrils or my ears or, of course, what can be chewed on ! I really don’t think babies know it in their
heads that he/she is ordained to be a civil engineer or a writer or
whatever. But then, customs and
traditions still triumph and yes, please don’t ask why ! No one knows !!

I’ve
always wondered what people steeped in tradition would make of a baby that
picks up a book and starts to chew on it !!
Go figure !! They are curious
little humans.

Fortunately,
us TamBrahms do not offer our babies such mouth watering choices else Macadamia
would have eaten them all up, for sure.
That kid used to eat everything else, except vegetables and fruit and
other foods that are considered fit for human consumption. During her first birthday, she literally
chewed through one of her dad’s watches !!
Imagine letting her loose with a lump of clay and a pen and what have
you. For Macadamia, it would have been a
feast beyond description !!

Let’s
not even start with Pecan. That kid was
an insanely curious bee who used to stuff crayons in his ears and pick ants off
the floor and pop them into his mouth. I’m pretty sure he still has a couple of small
thermocol bits somewhere in his nasal passage or maybe those bits have travelled
half the world into the sinus cavities or some such.

If
a whole plethora of things had been laid out at his Annaprashnam, the pen would
promptly have been stuck into a nostril (not necessarily his own), the book would have been chewed on or turned into a hat (thank your stars that he doesn't particularly like origami) and
he would probably have dunked the food on his own head – logic being – if food
is dunked on the head, it slides down due to gravity and then you eat it. See, you don’t need to use your hands. Now are you beginning to get a fair idea of
the kind of kid he was ?

Well,
so now that little Iyer baby has been introduced to solid food, the chorunnu
ceremony is deemed wover. The baby goes
back to eating mush (ever seen that look of shock on baby’s face as he/she gets
fed mush again after the chorunnu). That
must be one confused little human being.

We’ll
take leave for now, mush and all and meet up soon, over the baby’s first
birthday, I guess.

Poittu
varen na ! Pinney paarkalam ! See you all soon ! Stay tuned for the next post as paapa (baby in TamBrahm lexis) turns a year old !!

About Me

I don many hats - a daughter, a wife, a mom to two (and still sane, by the way) and a full time teacher, to mention a few.
Writing has always been one of my passions and continues to be my mode of expressing my feelings, thoughts in my personal space.
This blog was essentially started, way back in 2006, to pen down the little tidbits,memoirs of The Nutty Siblings - Macadamia and Pecan's childhood.
Now, with the kids having grown up, the blog has indeed become a space where I pen down my thoughts as and when they demand to be penned down.
I love satire in all its aspects and of late, have embarked on a satirical journey on this blog, with regard with TamBrahm weddings. Many parts have already been penned and there are many more to come.
As life’s train chugs along, bringing along with it our share of the good’s, the bad’s and the in-between’s, as the kids grow up and we grow older, the little chronicles on Tiny Tidbits will hopefully continue to serve as those little windows , a little time machine that takes us on a humorous, engrossing trip, back in time.